Twitter abandons its “Fleets”, attempt to import the Story format on the social network.
Snapchat invented the “Story” format and Instagram popularized it. And then the clones were born. Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn and, of course, Twitter, are all companies that have dabbled in ephemeral sharing of multimedia content. It is clearly not known what the result of these tests is for most of these companies, but in any case, for Twitter, it is a failure: the company has announced that it will kill its “Fleets”, name of the Stories on Twitter, from August 3, 2021. So you only have a fortnight left to experiment with the format before it sinks into the history of failed products.
The statement released by Twitter insists on a language element: “Fleets” were meant to be spaces to bring passive users of the social network to ” join the conversation “. This punchline, which frames Twitter’s ambition as a social network of immediacy, was not really sublimated by users of the social network.
Fleets, designed for those intimidated by heated Twitter discussions, haven’t used Fleets. Instead, confirmed users who have been convinced by the social network have spoken on this new tool – often, according to Twitter ” to highlight their tweets “. Beyond a strengthening of the ego, the interest was therefore limited.
The “Story made in Twitter Appeared only in mobile apps above the news feed. This space will be used for “real time” events and in particular for Spaces, another attempt to clone a feature by Twitter, this time from Clubhouse.
Will there be any bits of Fleets left in Twitter?
It is likely that bits of Fleets will stick around on Twitter. Ilya Brown, the company’s chief product officer, said the tweet composition window will soon incorporate functionality from Fleets – ” adding stickers and full screen photos “, for example. One way to show that this whole project is not completely to be thrown away.
It remains to be seen whether innovation on Twitter is not doomed to the same fate, year after year: users of the social network mainly use it for its main function (tweeter) and its private messages (“DM”). The very essence of Twitter, based on instantaneity, makes it difficult to impose new formats, especially from other social networks. Often, Twitter plays its role as an amplifier for formats published on other platforms – websites, YouTube, Instagram, etc. It is therefore difficult to imagine Twitter as a place of expression for total content, where all the popular formats present on the web coexist.
